After we left Chicago we started the tour proper. This is when we settled down into the long haul, over the road touring. Gone were the slap-happy antics of the day trip to Chicago, mooning people, or flashing Penthouse centerfolds at other drivers. After a couple of days of laying down some hard mileage, there was no more good natured joking, tossing things around, and listening to music at party levels. We started noticing the habits and idiosyncrasies of one another. At least when we were at the house we could leave, get some perspective on things, or just get away, but in the van, on the road, it was a shared isolation tank on wheels. A band is a really compressed thing, the most severe living conditions imaginable outside a family. The fault lines show early and erupt under the pressure of constant exposure with the possibility that any one thing could be interpreted five different ways, or magnified beyond its true proportions. There was always someone's itch to scratch, or someone to soothe. The only escape were the thrice daily stops for food and washroom breaks, at most an hour. I noticed that whenever Tom had some spare time when he was done loading or unloading the van, when we stopped for lunch, or he just had some time to kill, he would take out a sketch pad and start to draw, the boys had noticed it too, but he never let anyone see what he was doing. Brian took up the challenge and was continually trying to sneak up from behind to see what he was drawing. Tom was vigilant, almost like a Shaolin monk in his ability to perceive someone coming up from behind. Otherwise, Johnny and Brian kept to themselves most of the time. From what I could gather they'd been friends since grammar school. It was hard to crack the familiarity and solidarity they had, but they were the musical heart of the band and that was what I needed the most. Living day to day in such close quarters, it's a wonder any band lasts more than a few months. The only sound in the van would be low playing music as a soundtrack, Ian tippy-tapping out some rhythm on whatever surface was available, it seems drummers have to keep their hands moving no matter what. Mitchell would intermittently read from whatever guidebook or free pamphlet of local sites he had picked up on a break.
"What kind of word is en new I?"
"Let me see that." I said, reaching back for the book, "which word?" I asked, Mitchell reached over and pointed to the word. "It's pronounced 'on we'."
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 29: The View from the Stage
Monday, June 21, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The 'Rents
Chicago was the slow start of the tour. We didn't have another gig until the next weekend, so we had a couple of days to kill. The next day, Sunday, I slept in until one or two in the afternoon. Since my parents lived nearby, I decided it was time to tell them what I was doing for a living, it was a chance Morrison also took and it was the last confirmed communication he had with his parents. He sent them a letter telling them he was in a band and, "what did they think of that?" They, especially his father, had disapproved citing failed childhood piano lessons. I wasn't going to be as confrontational as he had been, I hoped. My parents were quite a bit older than me. I was a late life baby for them. As a matter of fact, my older brother and sister were often mistaken for my parents. My father answered the door. He was a tall, lean man even in his seventies. An Annapolis graduate, after he left the military he had become a corporate lawyer who took stock in lieu of his full salary. Around the time I was in high school he owned so much of the stock he was given the chance to buy the company, which he did. Then he turned around and sold the company again within the year. The new owner breached their contract and my father took them to court and won. Winning several more millions of dollars. He had a cocktail in his hand when he answered the door.
"Hello Mikey," he said, as I breathed out a sigh of exasperation. Surprisingly, he didn't seem surprised to see me, "come on in, your Mother and I were just having a cocktail." My mother was in the den. She was still a handsome woman, who had helped my father's career by being the charming, witty hostess, wife and mother, for both the military and corporate worlds. Her only real failing in life was wearing perfume that was much too rosy smelling.
"Mikeee!" She said, as she got up from the couch to give me a hug, "its so nice of you to come down for a visit."
"I didn't come down, for a visit. I'm actually in town on business."
"That's good to hear," my father said. "What business would that be?"
"Here, take a look." I said, handing him a scrapbook that I had put together with the few reviews there were. He handed it to my mother. After a couple of minutes of leafing through the pages and skimming the headlines my mother asked,
"I don't understand this, Mikey, what do you have to do with this band?"
"I'm the lead singer."
"Oh, Mikey!" My mother said, disappointment clearly in her voice. "You have so much potential, you could be doing so much with your life."
"I am doing something with my life."
"Mikey," my father said as mildly as he could, "your mother and I gave you so much more than even your brother and sister. You were practically raised as an only child we had such great hopes for you. True, a great many things were expected of you," he paused, "but then again as of late, not that much has been forthcoming from you." My eyes started welling up from the usual litany of disappointment. I tried to think of anything else to staunch the tears.
"That's really not true," I said, "you gave money to Jonathan for medical school and money to Ilene to buy into that software company."
"All loans that were paid back with the appropriate interest. Look Mikey, your older brother and sister were always more self-directed than you. You got a liberal arts degree and then you wanted to go to graduate school. I'm still not sure what you were planning on getting a post graduate degree in."
"And since then what have you been doing, Mikey?" My mother asked. "Doing drugs, and living by that college and dating those little girls."
"Michael," my father said, "your mother and I have been talking." My parents looked at each other. My mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, nodded her head to my father almost imperceptibly. "I'll loan you the money for graduate school. You’ll have to give up this band thing of course, get a job in the area of the graduate degree, and pay the loan off within five years. The same deal we gave your brother and sister." I started gathering up my scrapbook.
"Mikey," my Mother said, "you don't have to give us an answer now, take a couple of days."
"That's all right," I said, "you've never believed in me or let me do what I wanted to do anyway. You made me take all those science courses when all I was interested in was music."
"Mikey, we've always encouraged you in your endeavors. Like when you got that job as a disc jockey."
"And what happened with that?" My father said, sternly.
"I didn't take the job."
"And why not?"
"It was a small market station, I didn't want to move to the middle of nowhere New Mexico. It was beneath my talents."
"Mikey, you have to start at the bottom. How many times have I told you no one is going to come to you with a job no matter how talented you are. You have to go seek them out."
"Thanks for the moment of failure, I was trying. I am trying," I took a second to compose myself, "never mind. This is what I want to do," I said clutching the mostly empty scrapbook. I left.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 27: On We Go
"Hello Mikey," he said, as I breathed out a sigh of exasperation. Surprisingly, he didn't seem surprised to see me, "come on in, your Mother and I were just having a cocktail." My mother was in the den. She was still a handsome woman, who had helped my father's career by being the charming, witty hostess, wife and mother, for both the military and corporate worlds. Her only real failing in life was wearing perfume that was much too rosy smelling.
"Mikeee!" She said, as she got up from the couch to give me a hug, "its so nice of you to come down for a visit."
"I didn't come down, for a visit. I'm actually in town on business."
"That's good to hear," my father said. "What business would that be?"
"Here, take a look." I said, handing him a scrapbook that I had put together with the few reviews there were. He handed it to my mother. After a couple of minutes of leafing through the pages and skimming the headlines my mother asked,
"I don't understand this, Mikey, what do you have to do with this band?"
"I'm the lead singer."
"Oh, Mikey!" My mother said, disappointment clearly in her voice. "You have so much potential, you could be doing so much with your life."
"I am doing something with my life."
"Mikey," my father said as mildly as he could, "your mother and I gave you so much more than even your brother and sister. You were practically raised as an only child we had such great hopes for you. True, a great many things were expected of you," he paused, "but then again as of late, not that much has been forthcoming from you." My eyes started welling up from the usual litany of disappointment. I tried to think of anything else to staunch the tears.
"That's really not true," I said, "you gave money to Jonathan for medical school and money to Ilene to buy into that software company."
"All loans that were paid back with the appropriate interest. Look Mikey, your older brother and sister were always more self-directed than you. You got a liberal arts degree and then you wanted to go to graduate school. I'm still not sure what you were planning on getting a post graduate degree in."
"And since then what have you been doing, Mikey?" My mother asked. "Doing drugs, and living by that college and dating those little girls."
"Michael," my father said, "your mother and I have been talking." My parents looked at each other. My mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, nodded her head to my father almost imperceptibly. "I'll loan you the money for graduate school. You’ll have to give up this band thing of course, get a job in the area of the graduate degree, and pay the loan off within five years. The same deal we gave your brother and sister." I started gathering up my scrapbook.
"Mikey," my Mother said, "you don't have to give us an answer now, take a couple of days."
"That's all right," I said, "you've never believed in me or let me do what I wanted to do anyway. You made me take all those science courses when all I was interested in was music."
"Mikey, we've always encouraged you in your endeavors. Like when you got that job as a disc jockey."
"And what happened with that?" My father said, sternly.
"I didn't take the job."
"And why not?"
"It was a small market station, I didn't want to move to the middle of nowhere New Mexico. It was beneath my talents."
"Mikey, you have to start at the bottom. How many times have I told you no one is going to come to you with a job no matter how talented you are. You have to go seek them out."
"Thanks for the moment of failure, I was trying. I am trying," I took a second to compose myself, "never mind. This is what I want to do," I said clutching the mostly empty scrapbook. I left.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 27: On We Go
Monday, June 7, 2010
First Gig
The van pulled into the parking lot of Fitzgerald's. At first I thought we were in the wrong place. It looked just like a house. Although, how many houses have parking lots in front of them? We all got out and stretched. Tom and the band started unloading their gear while I headed into the club when I heard a voice behind me.
"Hey! Aren't you going to help us move the equipment inside?"
"No. You guys are the band." I went into the bar and got myself a beer. Fitzgerald's was a small room. It seemed to be built on the box principle. A large box with several smaller boxes placed inside. One of those boxes was the stage at the head of the room it was built up three or four feet off the floor and looked like a stage for grammar school plays. It faced seating for what looked like would be an audience of a hundred, tops.
I wasn't completely convinced of Swifty's trust in his nephew, so I watched everything Tom did under the pretense of hanging out. I watched as he brought the equipment in, setup the amps, mic's, and sound board. Since the room was so small, Tom commandeered a table in the middle of the room and set the sound board on that, running all the cables from the amps, mics and guitars into the mixer and set the levels during the sound check. It wasn't that hard of a setup.
We didn't have any special effects like dry ice for fog, no smudge pots, not even any colored lights except for whatever existed at the club.
While this was going on I was trying to figure out which song we should open with. We hadn't rehearsed 'sets' of songs because The Doors never did. They usually planned the first few songs ahead of time, but after that they frequently stopped between songs to discuss which song they were going to do next. If you listen to the bootlegs there are huge gaps in the shows where they're doing exactly this. That's why the band and I learned all The Doors' songs, so we could recreate this feeling and play any song that came up or that the audience called for.
The dressing room at Fitzgerald's was literally two steps behind the stage, as would become the usual, if there was a dressing room at all. It was small. There was an out of tune piano pushed up against one wall, a bunch of music stands were pushed into another corner. Against a wall stood an old-fashioned gilded stage mirrors with light bulbs that run around the outside edge. Of course all the sockets were empty and there was a layer of grime on it. I wondered how many lives it had? Did it start out life in vaudeville reflecting the likes of Bob Hope or Jack Benny? Maybe it had come from a theatre of Barrymore or O'Neill? Maybe the owners of this place had just bought a replica, a facsimile of the real piece and no longer had a use for it.
I thought I had worked out my nervousness at 'The Place'. Maybe it was because of the hometown advantage, or because I thought it would all go up in flames anyway, so I hadn't been nervous, but now I was and didn't know why. After all, I did have Morrison's blessing from the dream, but the dream made me more nervous. It really was just a dream, a little wish fulfillment courtesy of my subconscious. I didn't have Morrison's blessing or anyone else's for that matter. Maybe my nervousness was me trying to tell myself something? Or maybe it was because now it was more real. Everything was on the line. Everything I had dreamed of, all my hopes.
This was the make or break point, there was no going back for me. I'd sold my trailer for the money to rent the house. When I gave up the house, I sold all my possessions and collections, just as Morrison had when he started The Doors. He severed his ties with his family, going so far as telling people they were dead. Morrison knew there was no going back. The boys had homes and families to go back to. Everything I had known was gone. Everything I had worked for was to get me here, everything I wanted was in front of me one way or another I wasn't going back. Nothing would be the same for me after this. It was either fame and fortune, or failure. What if I did fail? At least that was something I could understand. I've felt the cold hand of rejection before I could understand dejection. But what really scared me was what if I succeeded? That I couldn't imagine, I couldn't even imagine the feeling? Joy? Exuberance lifting me to the heights? I couldn't even imagine what it would be like, outside of anything more than an abstract, or a cliché that didn't really seem to be a definition or even satisfy. Is that why Morrison acted so confidently, he knew that joy? Would I ever feel that? I thought I could feel it welling up inside of me, spreading like a warm smile. I'd felt it the first night at 'The Place', but suppressed it. I couldn't allow myself to feel it then because it was a beginning. The question was, could I allow myself to feel that now?
When it was time to go on there was a knock on the door and Tom stuck his head in the room with the rhetorical question "ready?" We crowded into the hallway. I was behind the band. I would go on last for heightened effect. The club was darkened, except for the spotlights on the stage. I could see figures, unknown, moving in the darkness. I could hear the chatter of a hundred different conversations. Then I heard Tom say from the mic at his improvised sound booth, "ladies and gentleman! The Unknown Soldiers!" And I felt a shot of excitement and adrenaline surge through me. The band took the stage each took his place at his instrument. Then it all seemed to slip into slow motion, the walk out to the microphone, my hand reaching out towards it and in my head I saw a movie of Morrison's hand reaching out to grab the microphone. I knew somehow I had to play somewhere The Doors had played. I had to see if that hand could reach out across time and touch me.
We opened with Peace Frog. The club went wild when I sang "blood in the streets of Chicago," just as I knew they would. My voice was a shriek compared to the screams Morrison used to jolt his audience from their complacency. But that wasn't enough I wanted them on their feet.
"Celebration of the Lizard." I said to the band. I rattled a tambourine to give the snake slither to the piece, the feeling of a story being told around a campfire, a preface that Morrison usually invoked when priming his audience. The band hit the first discordant notes of the 'song' it was a poem, really more theater, a loose narrative of a post-apocalyptic world where the survivors gather to tell their stories. Morrison variously acted, screamed, or moaned through the piece. It was supposed to be the long theater piece at the end of the third album, like The End and When The Music's Over were on the first and second albums, but they couldn't get it together enough for it to be on the album. Not to Touch the Earth was the only remnant to survive to the album. They usually used Celebration as a punishment when an audience was unruly demanding to hear "the hits", or to shock their audience into submission if nothing else worked. I recited the first few lines, and let the sounds vibrate around me and into the audience. I looked passed the lights into the audience and I could tell by the shocked look on their faces that they weren't familiar with this facet of The Doors, or the surprise that awaited them. We were going to give them the abbreviated version. As Mitchell hit the last note he held it, sustaining it, letting it linger in the air. I raised my arms, every eye in the club was on me and I knew I had them. I dropped my arms and the band went into the opening notes of Light My Fire. There was a gasp of recognition. The tension that was holding the crowd suspended was released and erupted. People were dancing others rushed the stage. As we got better in our show we’d do this over and over again, we’d play something like 5-1 letting the pressure build until the audience was ready to ‘POP’ then we’d let them off the hook with something like Love Me Two Times, it almost always provoked the same reaction, near riot.
After we played the last set, the audience was energized and still wanted to hear songs, and we still wanted to play. We had gone through the songs we had rehearsed the most, so I fell back on a device Morrison had used.
"What do you guys want to hear?" I asked the audience. Somebody shouted back,
"Land Ho!"
"You're kidding, right?" I asked. A hint of a laugh in my voice, "let me ask the band." I turned back to the boys, "you guys wanna play Land Ho!" They shook their heads no. "The band doesn't want to hear it either!" Everybody laughed. "Let's slow it down a little, here's a song I identified with too much in my tragic youth, End of the Night." The boys started the slow waltz of the song. I had always thought Pink Floyd had heard the song and adopted the feeling and used it for The Darkside of the Moon.
"All right! All right! All right!" I said, as we walked into the dressing room after the set.
"That was so cool!" Johnny said, "I've never seen an audience do that!"
"Unfuckingbelivable!"
"Let's do that again!" Brian yelled.
"Jim! Jim!" I heard someone yelling. I turned to see the manager of the club grabbing me around the shoulders, trying to be my friend.
"Uh, it's Michael actually." I said.
"Jim, Michael, whatever. Look, I understand what you're trying to do here," he said, above the din, "I like The Doors too. That's why I booked your group, but you need to tone down the histrionics. We can't have everyone in the club running around. There are fire laws and I'm trying to sell drinks here."
"All right, man." I said. And I knew I would be successful.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
"Hey! Aren't you going to help us move the equipment inside?"
"No. You guys are the band." I went into the bar and got myself a beer. Fitzgerald's was a small room. It seemed to be built on the box principle. A large box with several smaller boxes placed inside. One of those boxes was the stage at the head of the room it was built up three or four feet off the floor and looked like a stage for grammar school plays. It faced seating for what looked like would be an audience of a hundred, tops.
I wasn't completely convinced of Swifty's trust in his nephew, so I watched everything Tom did under the pretense of hanging out. I watched as he brought the equipment in, setup the amps, mic's, and sound board. Since the room was so small, Tom commandeered a table in the middle of the room and set the sound board on that, running all the cables from the amps, mics and guitars into the mixer and set the levels during the sound check. It wasn't that hard of a setup.
We didn't have any special effects like dry ice for fog, no smudge pots, not even any colored lights except for whatever existed at the club.
While this was going on I was trying to figure out which song we should open with. We hadn't rehearsed 'sets' of songs because The Doors never did. They usually planned the first few songs ahead of time, but after that they frequently stopped between songs to discuss which song they were going to do next. If you listen to the bootlegs there are huge gaps in the shows where they're doing exactly this. That's why the band and I learned all The Doors' songs, so we could recreate this feeling and play any song that came up or that the audience called for.
The dressing room at Fitzgerald's was literally two steps behind the stage, as would become the usual, if there was a dressing room at all. It was small. There was an out of tune piano pushed up against one wall, a bunch of music stands were pushed into another corner. Against a wall stood an old-fashioned gilded stage mirrors with light bulbs that run around the outside edge. Of course all the sockets were empty and there was a layer of grime on it. I wondered how many lives it had? Did it start out life in vaudeville reflecting the likes of Bob Hope or Jack Benny? Maybe it had come from a theatre of Barrymore or O'Neill? Maybe the owners of this place had just bought a replica, a facsimile of the real piece and no longer had a use for it.
I thought I had worked out my nervousness at 'The Place'. Maybe it was because of the hometown advantage, or because I thought it would all go up in flames anyway, so I hadn't been nervous, but now I was and didn't know why. After all, I did have Morrison's blessing from the dream, but the dream made me more nervous. It really was just a dream, a little wish fulfillment courtesy of my subconscious. I didn't have Morrison's blessing or anyone else's for that matter. Maybe my nervousness was me trying to tell myself something? Or maybe it was because now it was more real. Everything was on the line. Everything I had dreamed of, all my hopes.
This was the make or break point, there was no going back for me. I'd sold my trailer for the money to rent the house. When I gave up the house, I sold all my possessions and collections, just as Morrison had when he started The Doors. He severed his ties with his family, going so far as telling people they were dead. Morrison knew there was no going back. The boys had homes and families to go back to. Everything I had known was gone. Everything I had worked for was to get me here, everything I wanted was in front of me one way or another I wasn't going back. Nothing would be the same for me after this. It was either fame and fortune, or failure. What if I did fail? At least that was something I could understand. I've felt the cold hand of rejection before I could understand dejection. But what really scared me was what if I succeeded? That I couldn't imagine, I couldn't even imagine the feeling? Joy? Exuberance lifting me to the heights? I couldn't even imagine what it would be like, outside of anything more than an abstract, or a cliché that didn't really seem to be a definition or even satisfy. Is that why Morrison acted so confidently, he knew that joy? Would I ever feel that? I thought I could feel it welling up inside of me, spreading like a warm smile. I'd felt it the first night at 'The Place', but suppressed it. I couldn't allow myself to feel it then because it was a beginning. The question was, could I allow myself to feel that now?
When it was time to go on there was a knock on the door and Tom stuck his head in the room with the rhetorical question "ready?" We crowded into the hallway. I was behind the band. I would go on last for heightened effect. The club was darkened, except for the spotlights on the stage. I could see figures, unknown, moving in the darkness. I could hear the chatter of a hundred different conversations. Then I heard Tom say from the mic at his improvised sound booth, "ladies and gentleman! The Unknown Soldiers!" And I felt a shot of excitement and adrenaline surge through me. The band took the stage each took his place at his instrument. Then it all seemed to slip into slow motion, the walk out to the microphone, my hand reaching out towards it and in my head I saw a movie of Morrison's hand reaching out to grab the microphone. I knew somehow I had to play somewhere The Doors had played. I had to see if that hand could reach out across time and touch me.
We opened with Peace Frog. The club went wild when I sang "blood in the streets of Chicago," just as I knew they would. My voice was a shriek compared to the screams Morrison used to jolt his audience from their complacency. But that wasn't enough I wanted them on their feet.
"Celebration of the Lizard." I said to the band. I rattled a tambourine to give the snake slither to the piece, the feeling of a story being told around a campfire, a preface that Morrison usually invoked when priming his audience. The band hit the first discordant notes of the 'song' it was a poem, really more theater, a loose narrative of a post-apocalyptic world where the survivors gather to tell their stories. Morrison variously acted, screamed, or moaned through the piece. It was supposed to be the long theater piece at the end of the third album, like The End and When The Music's Over were on the first and second albums, but they couldn't get it together enough for it to be on the album. Not to Touch the Earth was the only remnant to survive to the album. They usually used Celebration as a punishment when an audience was unruly demanding to hear "the hits", or to shock their audience into submission if nothing else worked. I recited the first few lines, and let the sounds vibrate around me and into the audience. I looked passed the lights into the audience and I could tell by the shocked look on their faces that they weren't familiar with this facet of The Doors, or the surprise that awaited them. We were going to give them the abbreviated version. As Mitchell hit the last note he held it, sustaining it, letting it linger in the air. I raised my arms, every eye in the club was on me and I knew I had them. I dropped my arms and the band went into the opening notes of Light My Fire. There was a gasp of recognition. The tension that was holding the crowd suspended was released and erupted. People were dancing others rushed the stage. As we got better in our show we’d do this over and over again, we’d play something like 5-1 letting the pressure build until the audience was ready to ‘POP’ then we’d let them off the hook with something like Love Me Two Times, it almost always provoked the same reaction, near riot.
After we played the last set, the audience was energized and still wanted to hear songs, and we still wanted to play. We had gone through the songs we had rehearsed the most, so I fell back on a device Morrison had used.
"What do you guys want to hear?" I asked the audience. Somebody shouted back,
"Land Ho!"
"You're kidding, right?" I asked. A hint of a laugh in my voice, "let me ask the band." I turned back to the boys, "you guys wanna play Land Ho!" They shook their heads no. "The band doesn't want to hear it either!" Everybody laughed. "Let's slow it down a little, here's a song I identified with too much in my tragic youth, End of the Night." The boys started the slow waltz of the song. I had always thought Pink Floyd had heard the song and adopted the feeling and used it for The Darkside of the Moon.
"All right! All right! All right!" I said, as we walked into the dressing room after the set.
"That was so cool!" Johnny said, "I've never seen an audience do that!"
"Unfuckingbelivable!"
"Let's do that again!" Brian yelled.
"Jim! Jim!" I heard someone yelling. I turned to see the manager of the club grabbing me around the shoulders, trying to be my friend.
"Uh, it's Michael actually." I said.
"Jim, Michael, whatever. Look, I understand what you're trying to do here," he said, above the din, "I like The Doors too. That's why I booked your group, but you need to tone down the histrionics. We can't have everyone in the club running around. There are fire laws and I'm trying to sell drinks here."
"All right, man." I said. And I knew I would be successful.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Illinois Entertainer Article
Doors Music Revived
by Terence Moore
With Francis Ford Coppola's use of the Oedipal epic, The End, in Apocalypse Now, and the almost simultaneous release of the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive at the beginning of the decade there's been a resurgence of interest in all things Doors. One consequence of this is there's a new kind of rock band touring the country today. Not exactly new, cover bands have been quietly playing clubs across the country for a couple of years now. In case you're not familiar with the concept, the cover band is a band in which one or more of the band members play members of an already famous band. In this case the covered band is The Doors, and the band covering them is "The Unknown Soldiers", taken from The Doors' controversial anti-Vietnam anthem of the same name.
The cover band is a concept, the band says has its roots in Beatlemania and Elvis impersonators. "The Unknown Soldiers is an attempt to revive the music of The Doors for those who are curious as to what The Doors were like live, for those people who were too young to see them the first time around, or for those who want to relive the experience." Says lead singer Michael Desmond, who seems to live in Jim Morrison's skin as he came to the interview for this article in his Morrison drag.
"How did you and the band get the idea to cover The Doors?"
"It's the last stage of being a fan, you know? You either emulate your idol or you get all wrapped up in them and you start to believe you are them and have to assassinate them."
"That's a very Morrisonsonian thing to say."
"Well, it's more interesting than the truth."
"Which is?"
"I just had the idea. I was a Doors fan and was one of those people who were too young to see them. Part of The Doors appeal was their theatricality, so I thought it would be a natural that The Doors would translate easily to this format."
"What are you trying to accomplish with this cover band?"
"I'm trying to create a truth through fiction. I want to give people the experience of what it was like to see The Doors live because The Doors will never be able to tour again."
"I was able to see one of your rehearsals and you really seem to have Morrison's moves down."
"We've all seen videotapes of The Doors of course, but I seem to have an affinity for Morrison. I've read about him and I can just see him doing these things. Although I don't consciously recall seeing them, I just do what I'm seeing in my head. I don't know, maybe I just have a vivid imagination."
"How long have you guys been performing together?"
"Not long. This is really our first performance away from a hometown audience, and the public at large. We don't really know what to expect, but we've been getting a really good response."
"You and the band seem to have a great rapport."
"We all love The Doors, the band and me. That's what drew us together in the first place. We even split everything equally like The Doors. We're a unit, no one any more important than the other." With that kind of ethic this band could tour for a very long time.
The Unknown Soldiers are playing at Fitzgerald's this weekend and are currently touring the Midwest, signed for small clubs, and a couple of the outdoor fests. If you saw The Doors in concert and want a bit of a nostalgic return, or if you want to see what a Doors concert was like, see The Unknown Soldiers this weekend at Fitzgerald's.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 25: The First Gig
by Terence Moore
With Francis Ford Coppola's use of the Oedipal epic, The End, in Apocalypse Now, and the almost simultaneous release of the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive at the beginning of the decade there's been a resurgence of interest in all things Doors. One consequence of this is there's a new kind of rock band touring the country today. Not exactly new, cover bands have been quietly playing clubs across the country for a couple of years now. In case you're not familiar with the concept, the cover band is a band in which one or more of the band members play members of an already famous band. In this case the covered band is The Doors, and the band covering them is "The Unknown Soldiers", taken from The Doors' controversial anti-Vietnam anthem of the same name.
The cover band is a concept, the band says has its roots in Beatlemania and Elvis impersonators. "The Unknown Soldiers is an attempt to revive the music of The Doors for those who are curious as to what The Doors were like live, for those people who were too young to see them the first time around, or for those who want to relive the experience." Says lead singer Michael Desmond, who seems to live in Jim Morrison's skin as he came to the interview for this article in his Morrison drag.
"How did you and the band get the idea to cover The Doors?"
"It's the last stage of being a fan, you know? You either emulate your idol or you get all wrapped up in them and you start to believe you are them and have to assassinate them."
"That's a very Morrisonsonian thing to say."
"Well, it's more interesting than the truth."
"Which is?"
"I just had the idea. I was a Doors fan and was one of those people who were too young to see them. Part of The Doors appeal was their theatricality, so I thought it would be a natural that The Doors would translate easily to this format."
"What are you trying to accomplish with this cover band?"
"I'm trying to create a truth through fiction. I want to give people the experience of what it was like to see The Doors live because The Doors will never be able to tour again."
"I was able to see one of your rehearsals and you really seem to have Morrison's moves down."
"We've all seen videotapes of The Doors of course, but I seem to have an affinity for Morrison. I've read about him and I can just see him doing these things. Although I don't consciously recall seeing them, I just do what I'm seeing in my head. I don't know, maybe I just have a vivid imagination."
"How long have you guys been performing together?"
"Not long. This is really our first performance away from a hometown audience, and the public at large. We don't really know what to expect, but we've been getting a really good response."
"You and the band seem to have a great rapport."
"We all love The Doors, the band and me. That's what drew us together in the first place. We even split everything equally like The Doors. We're a unit, no one any more important than the other." With that kind of ethic this band could tour for a very long time.
The Unknown Soldiers are playing at Fitzgerald's this weekend and are currently touring the Midwest, signed for small clubs, and a couple of the outdoor fests. If you saw The Doors in concert and want a bit of a nostalgic return, or if you want to see what a Doors concert was like, see The Unknown Soldiers this weekend at Fitzgerald's.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 25: The First Gig
Monday, May 24, 2010
On The Road
Once we got out on the road, distance and motion seemed to lose all meaning. The odometer turned and signs whizzed by. The horizon was always just out of reach, we were riding the snake of American commerce and dreams, the highway, I’d always watched trucks and cars pass on the highway and I’d felt as if life was being transacted, and now I was on that road. But somehow it didn't seem real, it felt like we were standing still, like we were in a simulator or something, but we were having a good time. After all, we were a rock band touring on the road! The radio was blaring, the boys were goofing around, joking, playfully throwing things around. We were about half way to Chicago when the van started to slow down.
"Hey guys! Tom said, "there's a hitchhiker, should we pick him up?" The boys leaned up from the back to look. The hitchhiker looked like he could've been Tom's twin brother in torn jeans, plaid shirt and backpack. The boys all looked at each other, and yelled,
"No, man! That could be the killer on the road, step on it!" We all laughed as Tom hit the accelerator.
The time and distance gave me a lot of time to think. Since Kerouac, America has become convinced that some existential truth about itself can be found on the road. Morrison himself bought into the theme. In his songs, poems, and HWY, the movie he made was about a serial killer as existential metaphor. The randomness of death on the highway of life, the killer on the road we'll all eventually meet. Travel as catharsis and transcendence. When asked what Doors songs were about, Morrison said "sex, travel, and death," they were meant to be a journey. We think there are no worlds to discover, we forget about the monsters that lie just under the surface. What would we find at the end of this road? I didn't know, maybe visions, sex, madness, some great promised adventures in the American wilderness, and maybe we were going to find out some truth about ourselves. Kerouac and Morrison saw it as a search, I thought of this as transformation.
I pushed back in the passenger seat across from Tom, my boot resting on the dashboard. Johnny and Brian got the two seats behind us, while in the back Mitchell and Ian were variously draped over the equipment or sitting braced against it. I guess a new pecking order had been established. My leather pants creaked against the seat whenever I moved. With the money I had leftover from the sale of my trailer, and selling off the last of my collection I bought more leathers and other clothing that had the right look. The boys called it my Morrison uniform. Morrison lived the role. He didn't differentiate between real life and the stage. To him Rock ‘n’ Roll was a stark theatre, a place where life and death are enacted, it wasn’t safe on the edges, it was dangerous and you could die and that’s what makes life real. To Morrison, theater and life weren't separate. Shakespeare said, "all the world's a stage," and Morrison wrote, "this ancient and insane theater," so if I was going to be Morrison, I needed to live the role too. Writers have always been identified with the lifestyles they’ve lead. Hemingway let the man and the myth become inseparable and convoluted until even the man couldn’t remember what was myth and what was truth, and that’s the problem with an image, sooner or later it turns on you and is used against you, Morrison discovered this. But I knew all those pitfalls, I read all the biographies and learned from the mistakes of others who’ve gone down this road, I could see the traps and landmines ahead and avoid them, a real artful dodger.
Chicago was the first stop of the tour. The club was actually in a suburb of Chicago. We veered around the outskirts of the city, as the skyline came into view. "Sweet home Chicago," I sang under my breath. I remembered that L. Frank Baum had used Chicago as the description of Oz in the book The Wizard of Oz. I could kind of see it, a cluster of buildings hiding in the opacity of haze, which seemed to form a bubble around the city. I remembered the line from a song by America, "Oz didn't give anything to the tin man that he didn't all ready have." I felt like I was the man behind the curtain, at the same time controlling everything, but still a fraud. I hoped like hell the boys didn't find out.
Morrison had sung about Chicago, or at least included a reference in the song Peace Frog. "Funny name for a song, huh?" Morrison used to ask in concert. "Because even The Doors, in 1970, couldn't name a song Abortion Stories," Ray answered years later in an interview. I sang a verse from the song, "there's blood in the streets, it's up to my knee, blood in the streets of the town of Chicago," probably one of Morrison's most personal songs, it includes a lot of autobiographical details. There's a reference to New Haven, where he managed to be the first rock star arrested on stage. Also mentioned is Venice, California where he had lived on a friend's rooftop and by all reports ingested an extraordinary amount of LSD while writing the poems that would make up most of the first two albums worth of songs. And there’s the incredible Indians bleeding on dawn’s highway section, which recounts an incident from Morrison’s childhood. So, why in the face of all those autobiographical mentions is there a reference to Chicago? It’s a minor Rock 'n' Roll mystery. A lot of people like to think it's a reference to the police riot at the Democratic convention in '68, but Morrison wasn't there. Why mention places and events that have a deeply personal autobiographical connection, and one that has no personal connection? Morrison, if anything, was the master of his own mythology. So, why the Chicago mention? What people tend to forget is Chicago is where Morrison consciously provoked his audience to riot for the first time.
Besides Swifty buying ads in the local papers, the plan was as we hit each city the boys would run around plastering the local neighborhood with fliers. They would get the artsy, trendy neighborhoods with the coffee shops and bookstores, and then to the club areas, while I would give interviews to the local papers.
The living accommodations for the tour were supposed to be the band would share two rooms, and Tom and I were to share a room. I was the star, and the boys were at the age where they would be sleeping on friends' couches, anyway. I was a little passed that. Since I had the money, I got a room of my own and paid the difference between a single room and a double out of my own pocket. Tom was the inheritor of the unexpected luxury of his own room.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 25: Illinois Entertainer Interview
"Hey guys! Tom said, "there's a hitchhiker, should we pick him up?" The boys leaned up from the back to look. The hitchhiker looked like he could've been Tom's twin brother in torn jeans, plaid shirt and backpack. The boys all looked at each other, and yelled,
"No, man! That could be the killer on the road, step on it!" We all laughed as Tom hit the accelerator.
The time and distance gave me a lot of time to think. Since Kerouac, America has become convinced that some existential truth about itself can be found on the road. Morrison himself bought into the theme. In his songs, poems, and HWY, the movie he made was about a serial killer as existential metaphor. The randomness of death on the highway of life, the killer on the road we'll all eventually meet. Travel as catharsis and transcendence. When asked what Doors songs were about, Morrison said "sex, travel, and death," they were meant to be a journey. We think there are no worlds to discover, we forget about the monsters that lie just under the surface. What would we find at the end of this road? I didn't know, maybe visions, sex, madness, some great promised adventures in the American wilderness, and maybe we were going to find out some truth about ourselves. Kerouac and Morrison saw it as a search, I thought of this as transformation.
I pushed back in the passenger seat across from Tom, my boot resting on the dashboard. Johnny and Brian got the two seats behind us, while in the back Mitchell and Ian were variously draped over the equipment or sitting braced against it. I guess a new pecking order had been established. My leather pants creaked against the seat whenever I moved. With the money I had leftover from the sale of my trailer, and selling off the last of my collection I bought more leathers and other clothing that had the right look. The boys called it my Morrison uniform. Morrison lived the role. He didn't differentiate between real life and the stage. To him Rock ‘n’ Roll was a stark theatre, a place where life and death are enacted, it wasn’t safe on the edges, it was dangerous and you could die and that’s what makes life real. To Morrison, theater and life weren't separate. Shakespeare said, "all the world's a stage," and Morrison wrote, "this ancient and insane theater," so if I was going to be Morrison, I needed to live the role too. Writers have always been identified with the lifestyles they’ve lead. Hemingway let the man and the myth become inseparable and convoluted until even the man couldn’t remember what was myth and what was truth, and that’s the problem with an image, sooner or later it turns on you and is used against you, Morrison discovered this. But I knew all those pitfalls, I read all the biographies and learned from the mistakes of others who’ve gone down this road, I could see the traps and landmines ahead and avoid them, a real artful dodger.
Chicago was the first stop of the tour. The club was actually in a suburb of Chicago. We veered around the outskirts of the city, as the skyline came into view. "Sweet home Chicago," I sang under my breath. I remembered that L. Frank Baum had used Chicago as the description of Oz in the book The Wizard of Oz. I could kind of see it, a cluster of buildings hiding in the opacity of haze, which seemed to form a bubble around the city. I remembered the line from a song by America, "Oz didn't give anything to the tin man that he didn't all ready have." I felt like I was the man behind the curtain, at the same time controlling everything, but still a fraud. I hoped like hell the boys didn't find out.
Morrison had sung about Chicago, or at least included a reference in the song Peace Frog. "Funny name for a song, huh?" Morrison used to ask in concert. "Because even The Doors, in 1970, couldn't name a song Abortion Stories," Ray answered years later in an interview. I sang a verse from the song, "there's blood in the streets, it's up to my knee, blood in the streets of the town of Chicago," probably one of Morrison's most personal songs, it includes a lot of autobiographical details. There's a reference to New Haven, where he managed to be the first rock star arrested on stage. Also mentioned is Venice, California where he had lived on a friend's rooftop and by all reports ingested an extraordinary amount of LSD while writing the poems that would make up most of the first two albums worth of songs. And there’s the incredible Indians bleeding on dawn’s highway section, which recounts an incident from Morrison’s childhood. So, why in the face of all those autobiographical mentions is there a reference to Chicago? It’s a minor Rock 'n' Roll mystery. A lot of people like to think it's a reference to the police riot at the Democratic convention in '68, but Morrison wasn't there. Why mention places and events that have a deeply personal autobiographical connection, and one that has no personal connection? Morrison, if anything, was the master of his own mythology. So, why the Chicago mention? What people tend to forget is Chicago is where Morrison consciously provoked his audience to riot for the first time.
Besides Swifty buying ads in the local papers, the plan was as we hit each city the boys would run around plastering the local neighborhood with fliers. They would get the artsy, trendy neighborhoods with the coffee shops and bookstores, and then to the club areas, while I would give interviews to the local papers.
The living accommodations for the tour were supposed to be the band would share two rooms, and Tom and I were to share a room. I was the star, and the boys were at the age where they would be sleeping on friends' couches, anyway. I was a little passed that. Since I had the money, I got a room of my own and paid the difference between a single room and a double out of my own pocket. Tom was the inheritor of the unexpected luxury of his own room.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 25: Illinois Entertainer Interview
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Van
Our first look at the van was underwheleming. It was your standard commercial van a little larger than your average family van, stripped down to its welds and the joists of its skeleton. Swifty was right, there was enough room in the back for the equipment and us, just enough. He was right, again, in that it was used, there were dents and dings everywhere on it, but it was road worthy. I learned to love the van, when you got it up to seventy-five miles an hour or so, it started rattling, we’d take turns driving, when it was my turn to drive, I would get it up passed seventy-five until the band and the equipment were bouncing around like flowers in a storm, yelling at me to slow down.
"Should we paint it like the Partridge Family bus?" Mitchell asked
"Nah, that's kind of lame," I said, "how about Kesey's bus, Furthur. That might be the better reference."
"Well, I think we should christen it something?" Mitchell said.
"It's just a van." I said.
"How about the van-ity?" Ian said.
"The what?" I asked. I wondered if it was one of their smirking inside jokes, I looked around trying to see if any of them was suppressing a smile, but they weren’t.
"The van-ity. It's a van, right? Like in chitty, chitty bang bang, get it?"
“Not really.”
Then there was Tom, the 'roadie' bequeathed to us by Swifty, also underwheleming. He looked like a headbanger who had banged his head one time too many, he had long frizzy hair and his clothes looked dirty, he was a rocker who knew the history and lore of Rock 'n' Roll, but that knowledge mysteriously stopped at 1979 with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He talked about “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, or some triva about Black Sabbath for no other reason than that’s what he thought was expected. Or maybe he was a little slow, but in the end, I could see he was malleable. I hoped the reason Swifty had put so much trust in him went beyond Tom being his nephew.
"Have you been a roadie before or is this your first time?" I asked.
"Oh, man, no, I've been doing this for a while."
"You tour with anybody we'd know?"
"Sure, Cheap Trick."
"Cheap Trick!" We all said, shocked. Then I asked, "THE Cheap Trick, the band that played Budokan, The Dream Police. That band? And not some band that did something gimmicky like spelled Trick with a y, or something, was it?"
“Or cheap without the A or a umathingy over the e?”
"No, dudes. They’re probably the biggest band I ever toured with."
"How'd you get to roadie for them?"
"Total accident, man. I grew up in Rockford, right? I was out one night, you know, I went to get a burrito and there's this guy in front of me. He had on a jacket with John Lennon on the back of it. I was in a boisterous mood, you know, so I said, 'oh, it's John Lennon, ' and the guy turned around, looked at me and said 'are you a lawyer?' I had no idea what he was talking about, but we started talking and it turned out this guy was Rick Nielson. But not Rick Nielson from like CHEAP TRICK. Just Rick and he kept talking about his band and he asked if I wanted to be a roadie. I figured it would a good way to get into parties and bars for free, so I said ‘sure.’ This was when they were still playing around Rockford and just about to start touring around the Midwest, way before Budokan. I've also toured with Scratch Happy and Thor."
"Never heard of them."
"No one has, dude."
"Do you like being a roadie?" Brian asked.
"All the traveling is fun, there are the chicks who'll do anything to get to the band. The only bummer is a band can leave you any place they want. You can get fired in the middle of nowhere. I've had to hitch home a few times."
"Why'd you have to hitch?"
"One band just ran out of money and it was, sorry dude we can't afford you anymore." Then he turned to Johnny, "what instrument do you play?"
"Guitar."
"I thought so, man. You should grow your hair out."
"What for?"
"You need hair to play guitar, man, or it's really boring."
"All right," I laughed, "let's load the van and get going."
"Anyway, I doubt I'll be left behind on this tour." Tom said.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
"Should we paint it like the Partridge Family bus?" Mitchell asked
"Nah, that's kind of lame," I said, "how about Kesey's bus, Furthur. That might be the better reference."
"Well, I think we should christen it something?" Mitchell said.
"It's just a van." I said.
"How about the van-ity?" Ian said.
"The what?" I asked. I wondered if it was one of their smirking inside jokes, I looked around trying to see if any of them was suppressing a smile, but they weren’t.
"The van-ity. It's a van, right? Like in chitty, chitty bang bang, get it?"
“Not really.”
Then there was Tom, the 'roadie' bequeathed to us by Swifty, also underwheleming. He looked like a headbanger who had banged his head one time too many, he had long frizzy hair and his clothes looked dirty, he was a rocker who knew the history and lore of Rock 'n' Roll, but that knowledge mysteriously stopped at 1979 with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. He talked about “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, or some triva about Black Sabbath for no other reason than that’s what he thought was expected. Or maybe he was a little slow, but in the end, I could see he was malleable. I hoped the reason Swifty had put so much trust in him went beyond Tom being his nephew.
"Have you been a roadie before or is this your first time?" I asked.
"Oh, man, no, I've been doing this for a while."
"You tour with anybody we'd know?"
"Sure, Cheap Trick."
"Cheap Trick!" We all said, shocked. Then I asked, "THE Cheap Trick, the band that played Budokan, The Dream Police. That band? And not some band that did something gimmicky like spelled Trick with a y, or something, was it?"
“Or cheap without the A or a umathingy over the e?”
"No, dudes. They’re probably the biggest band I ever toured with."
"How'd you get to roadie for them?"
"Total accident, man. I grew up in Rockford, right? I was out one night, you know, I went to get a burrito and there's this guy in front of me. He had on a jacket with John Lennon on the back of it. I was in a boisterous mood, you know, so I said, 'oh, it's John Lennon, ' and the guy turned around, looked at me and said 'are you a lawyer?' I had no idea what he was talking about, but we started talking and it turned out this guy was Rick Nielson. But not Rick Nielson from like CHEAP TRICK. Just Rick and he kept talking about his band and he asked if I wanted to be a roadie. I figured it would a good way to get into parties and bars for free, so I said ‘sure.’ This was when they were still playing around Rockford and just about to start touring around the Midwest, way before Budokan. I've also toured with Scratch Happy and Thor."
"Never heard of them."
"No one has, dude."
"Do you like being a roadie?" Brian asked.
"All the traveling is fun, there are the chicks who'll do anything to get to the band. The only bummer is a band can leave you any place they want. You can get fired in the middle of nowhere. I've had to hitch home a few times."
"Why'd you have to hitch?"
"One band just ran out of money and it was, sorry dude we can't afford you anymore." Then he turned to Johnny, "what instrument do you play?"
"Guitar."
"I thought so, man. You should grow your hair out."
"What for?"
"You need hair to play guitar, man, or it's really boring."
"All right," I laughed, "let's load the van and get going."
"Anyway, I doubt I'll be left behind on this tour." Tom said.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Monday, May 10, 2010
Hollywood Today/Jim Morrison Dream
Hollywood Today!
Hollywood Today! was on, it’s one of those shows that thrives on celebrity gossip. It was part of my campaign to keep myself informed of what was going on in Hollywood. Merri Caldwell, a cotton candy blonde plastic confection, a television projection for viewer’s fantasies was the host. I lay in my bed listening to her report.
"Where is Jimmy Stark?" She said, "Once the star of the late 60's TV show 'Family Muse', and known as 'America's little brother.' We all grew up with him. Jimmy's mother noticed his talent early and got him cast in TV commercials." They cut to a very black and white TV commercial, with an almost infant child that, in hindsight, is recognizably little Jimmy Stark. "Then came Family Muse, the late 60's sitcom in which he played the precocious son of a mother trying to make it in the music industry." They showed a clip from the show featuring Jimmy which is now considered a television classic, "after 'Family Muse' his career stalled, hitting the wall a lot of child stars do, not being taken seriously in adult roles. In his late teens, Jimmy got married," they showed still photos of Jimmy and a young girl in a wedding dress, running down the steps of a church through a gauntlet of friends throwing rice. The pictures juxtaposed to create a jerky stop motion sequence ending with a picture of Jimmy, his wife and two children, "but they divorced after five years." They cut back to Merri in the studio, "in his twenties it looked like he was making the transition from child star to actor, starring in several movies, including an Academy Award nomination for ‘Tender Fury‘." They, of course, showed clips from the movie, followed by a still photo of Jimmy and his wife going down the red carpet into the Academy Awards ceremony, "he was also known as Hollywood's enfant terrible, making headlines for a series of police arrests and drug problems." There was a flash of white light that faded to a newspaper photo of Jimmy being lead away in handcuffs by cops on either side of him. A headline read: Former Child Star Arrested. "But he has long since disappeared from movies, TV, personal appearances, the police blotters, and even the tabloids." Then came the big finish to their story, "Jimmy Stark had fame, money, a glamorous career. Why did an actor with such a bright future toss it all away with such ruthless abandon? Well, we here at Hollywood Today! want to know too. Going on the adage, to find out where you are, you should examine where you've been. In future reports we will try to answer those questions."
I fell asleep.
Dream
I was at a party, the room was crowded with people. A stranger I knew asked, "hey, want to go to a concert?" Then I was walking the familiar hallways of the school, the light coolly reflected off the waxed marble floors. I heard the sound of faraway music echoing in the halls. I was alone. I followed the sound through the hallways of the labyrinth school. It became louder and louder as I approached the auditorium, I recognized the music, it was The Doors at their peak playing a scorching rendition of Light My Fire, played only as they could have early in their career. It was loud and Morrison's voice was a growl, then the music stopped. I was walking backstage, there were velvet curtains, backdrops from plays, tied off ropes running up to sandbags and wooden catwalks. Suddenly, there was Jim Morrison. Lean in his leather clad glory wearing a white shirt that accentuated the shiny black leather of his pants. He was sitting at a table having a beer. He pushed out the empty chair across from him with a tap of his boot.
"Have a seat man. Want a beer?" Before I could answer he pulled out an open beer from somewhere. "Replenish those precious bodily fluids," he said. "So, I understand you're going to be me."
"I, I don't think I can do it. I can't sing. I can't dance. All I have is this stupid idea."
"It's as easy as falling down, man. Go ahead, fall down and get back up. Make it look like a part of the act. I fell down a lot."
"You think I can do it?"
"Sure, consider this my blessing and just remember, it's all a dream." Then the bearded poetic Jim Morrison was sitting back in the chair smiling benevolently at me. "Well, I gotta be in Kalamazoo by two AM, hahaha." Then he was gone and so was the beer.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 23: The Van
Hollywood Today! was on, it’s one of those shows that thrives on celebrity gossip. It was part of my campaign to keep myself informed of what was going on in Hollywood. Merri Caldwell, a cotton candy blonde plastic confection, a television projection for viewer’s fantasies was the host. I lay in my bed listening to her report.
"Where is Jimmy Stark?" She said, "Once the star of the late 60's TV show 'Family Muse', and known as 'America's little brother.' We all grew up with him. Jimmy's mother noticed his talent early and got him cast in TV commercials." They cut to a very black and white TV commercial, with an almost infant child that, in hindsight, is recognizably little Jimmy Stark. "Then came Family Muse, the late 60's sitcom in which he played the precocious son of a mother trying to make it in the music industry." They showed a clip from the show featuring Jimmy which is now considered a television classic, "after 'Family Muse' his career stalled, hitting the wall a lot of child stars do, not being taken seriously in adult roles. In his late teens, Jimmy got married," they showed still photos of Jimmy and a young girl in a wedding dress, running down the steps of a church through a gauntlet of friends throwing rice. The pictures juxtaposed to create a jerky stop motion sequence ending with a picture of Jimmy, his wife and two children, "but they divorced after five years." They cut back to Merri in the studio, "in his twenties it looked like he was making the transition from child star to actor, starring in several movies, including an Academy Award nomination for ‘Tender Fury‘." They, of course, showed clips from the movie, followed by a still photo of Jimmy and his wife going down the red carpet into the Academy Awards ceremony, "he was also known as Hollywood's enfant terrible, making headlines for a series of police arrests and drug problems." There was a flash of white light that faded to a newspaper photo of Jimmy being lead away in handcuffs by cops on either side of him. A headline read: Former Child Star Arrested. "But he has long since disappeared from movies, TV, personal appearances, the police blotters, and even the tabloids." Then came the big finish to their story, "Jimmy Stark had fame, money, a glamorous career. Why did an actor with such a bright future toss it all away with such ruthless abandon? Well, we here at Hollywood Today! want to know too. Going on the adage, to find out where you are, you should examine where you've been. In future reports we will try to answer those questions."
I fell asleep.
Dream
I was at a party, the room was crowded with people. A stranger I knew asked, "hey, want to go to a concert?" Then I was walking the familiar hallways of the school, the light coolly reflected off the waxed marble floors. I heard the sound of faraway music echoing in the halls. I was alone. I followed the sound through the hallways of the labyrinth school. It became louder and louder as I approached the auditorium, I recognized the music, it was The Doors at their peak playing a scorching rendition of Light My Fire, played only as they could have early in their career. It was loud and Morrison's voice was a growl, then the music stopped. I was walking backstage, there were velvet curtains, backdrops from plays, tied off ropes running up to sandbags and wooden catwalks. Suddenly, there was Jim Morrison. Lean in his leather clad glory wearing a white shirt that accentuated the shiny black leather of his pants. He was sitting at a table having a beer. He pushed out the empty chair across from him with a tap of his boot.
"Have a seat man. Want a beer?" Before I could answer he pulled out an open beer from somewhere. "Replenish those precious bodily fluids," he said. "So, I understand you're going to be me."
"I, I don't think I can do it. I can't sing. I can't dance. All I have is this stupid idea."
"It's as easy as falling down, man. Go ahead, fall down and get back up. Make it look like a part of the act. I fell down a lot."
"You think I can do it?"
"Sure, consider this my blessing and just remember, it's all a dream." Then the bearded poetic Jim Morrison was sitting back in the chair smiling benevolently at me. "Well, I gotta be in Kalamazoo by two AM, hahaha." Then he was gone and so was the beer.
(The Last Stage is available on Kindle, Nook Books, or if you would like a signed copy of The Last Stage they're available from my website (only $20!) at Jymsbooks via Paypal (jymwrite@aol.com, please don't forget your mailing address!)
Chapter 23: The Van
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